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You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Missing the Forest

Missing the Forest

by | 71 Comments

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This story caught my eye:

A man who helped a family trapped a crash got a bill in the mail for his unselfish act.

Paramedics sent him the first-responder fee of nearly $150 after he says they only checked his pulse and gave him a bottle of water.

A photo shows the aftermath of the scary rollover crash that trapped a man and his three children trapped inside.

Derrick Deanda jumped into action and recounted the heart-pounding moment.

“I pulled up right as it happened,” he said. “There was a guy standing inside the van, because it was on its side, holding a 2 year-old infant.”

Deanda broke the glass to free the family before paramedics arrived. Everyone was OK.

But weeks later Deanda got a bill in the mail from the Cosumnes Community Services District with a $143 first-responder fee.

It’s your basic clickbait article designed to work up the masses and get everyone pissed off at the government, but they buried the lede:

The district began implementing the fee two years ago in a move it says prevents fire station brownouts.

In the old days, before we decided to drown government in a bathtub, we used to have fire and policemen paid for by taxes. It made more sense that way. But, freedumb.

Reader Interactions

71Comments

  1. 1.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    I think this way is much better. Why should people who never get into a car wreck, or help others who get in wrecks, have to pay their Hard Earned Money® so some deadbeats can roll their cars over for fun and get a free ride? If people don’t want to pay the fee, they shouldn’t let themselves get hit by drunk drivers or stop to help people trapped in cars. I think we can all agree that society as a whole would be better off if we didn’t help each other. Ayn Rand even says so. Altruism is the worst form of selfishness.

  2. 2.

    Mnemosyne

    I can never figure out what conservatives are worse at, probability or basic math. They really seem to think that they themselves will never have a house fire, or get into an auto accident, or have their car stolen, so they’d rather pay a vastly inflated price when one (or more than one) of those things happen than pay a much smaller amount called a “tax” that would cover those things.

  3. 3.

    Adam L Silverman

    I’ve said and written it before and I’m sure I’ll save and written it again: we need to start having the discussion again about what are and are not public goods and how to properly and efficiently resource them.

    Also, if you’re really wondering where the idea that there really should be no public goods, just read the Confederate Constitution. While they pretty much just copied the US Constitution and then added a bunch of stuff about slavery and state sovereignty, they left something very important out. There is no “provide for the general welfare” clause anywhere in the Confederate Constitution. You can’t kill an idea and this is definitely an example of that.

  4. 4.

    frosty

    Whew, looks like I dodged a fee. Had a wreck a couple of years ago, low speed but it totaled my car. The County EMTs in the ambulance were sitting around bored ’cause everyone was OK. I let them check my BP and pulse just so they’d have something to do. I’m glad it didn’t cost me $150.

    Of course, we were in Soshalist central Maryland where public services are kind of expected and paid for. Duh.

  6. 6.

    redshirt

    I used to help people a lot more, but now I think beforehand:
    How much might this cost me in lawsuits?

    The better choice is to defer. To not get involved.

    And so Dr. Lawyer wins another day.

  7. 7.

    frosty

    @Adam L Silverman:

    There is no “provide for the general welfare” clause anywhere in the Confederate Constitution.

    Now that’s really interesting. Looks like we’re still fighting the Civil War. Although after reading Albion’s Seed, I’m beginning to think it’s the English Civil War we’re still fighting.

    And to think I once mocked the Balkans for fighting over stuff that happened 400 years ago.

  8. 8.

    Gvg

    I don’t get it. Why would anyone get a bill? Someone hits you, you get a bill? Why hasn’t everyone complained for the last 2 years?

  9. 9.

    Mnemosyne

    @middlelee:

    My guess: it’s like what we did here in California at the height of the budget crisis (which, not surprisingly, was when the GOP had a stranglehold on the budget). Certain fire stations were closed down or had their hours of operation reduced because there wasn’t enough money to keep them open.

    Eventually, voters here in California said, Christ, just go ahead and raise my taxes, this is fucking ridiculous! and we got several things passed. Not sure what it will take to wake the rest of the country up.

  10. 10.

    Adam L Silverman

    @frosty: It is what it is. And what it is is something that unfortunately effects the rest of us. Kind of no reason for self government if you’re not going to provide for the general welfare.

  11. 11.

    jacy

    I guess I can’t think critically tonight — and admittedly didn’t click through — but why would first responders have to pay a fee to respond? It would make sense if the people in the accident were billed since someone responded to them. (Well, not sense, exactly, but sense in the wingnut universe…..)

  13. 13.

    Mnemosyne

    @redshirt:

    Check your state laws, but most states have “Good Samaritan” laws that mean people can’t sue you for trying to help them. You do have to, like, not actively harm them because you don’t know what you’re doing, though.

  14. 14.

    Steeplejack

    @jacy:

    It’s a fee from the first responders—that is, for for their service—not a fee to the first responders.

    This guy got a bill because the official first responders gave him a cursory lookover.

  15. 15.

    Miss Bianca

    @Adam L Silverman: that’s true of the Southern states in general, it seems – the “general welfare” concept seems to be sadly lacking. Witness how they fought the notion of compulsory – but free – public education – that Yankee importation with its notion of “the Commonwealth!”

    And what has happened to that Puritan notion of “the Commonwealth”? Say what you like about the worst traits of the Puritans, the notion that we as a society have the obligation to take care of our own was firmly rooted in their culture, and it seems to be sadly lacking as an influence on our society nowadays.

    ETA: Weird – both Anglo-American models, but it does rather look like the difference between the Roundheads and the Cavaliers. I have family stock in both New England and the Tidewater, but I know which model I prefer.

  17. 17.

    Mnemosyne

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I think it’s less mathematical probabilities than being realistic. I’m terrible at math, but I can think, I could potentially get into a serious car accident, therefore we should have well-funded emergency responders just in case that happens. For a lot of the libertarian types, it genuinely never seems to occur to them that something unexpected could happen.

  18. 18.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: The reason we have publicly paid for fire and emergency services, even in places that have strong volunteer fire department traditions, was because privatizing the services were destructive. You don’t even have to go back to Samuel Pepys chronicling the great London Fire. Benjamin Franklin, the father of American Fire Departments, watched one to many cities burn down over private fire companies not responding because they wouldn’t get paid for putting the fire out.

  19. 19.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    @Adam L Silverman:

    I’ve said and written it before and I’m sure I’ll save and written it again: we need to start having the discussion again about what are and are not public goods and how to properly and efficiently resource them.

    What the hell is wrong with you? There are no “public goods”. Anything good is private, and it always has been, ever since Jesus brought the money changers into the temple and charged 800 shekels for healing blind people. All this talk about “public goods” is just a sneaky-ass way for communists to sneak all kinds of subversive ideas into our pristine heads about evils like clean water and rural electrification. Go back to Roosha, where you’ll be happy with the other commies.

  24. 24.

    ? Martin

    @Mnemosyne: Let’s be a bit clearer – first we voted Republicans out of office, then we repealed the supermajorities for passing a budget which was allowing the minority to hostage-take, then we voted to increase taxes.

    Basically we voted to have a functional government.

  26. 26.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.)

    @Mnemosyne:

    For a lot of the libertarian types, it genuinely never seems to occur to them that something unexpected could happen.

    You got that right. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve argued with libertarians who bitch about how the government can’t do anything worthwhile. One of the things I’ve answered with from time to time is the FDIC. I think it’s worth a few dollars in taxes each year to know that, one, if my bank goes under, it won’t take all my money with it, and that, two, it won’t start a run and wreck the world’s economy.

    Every fucking time I bring this up, they come back with some variation on the theme of how if people are dumb enough to put their money in banks run by thieves (and, naturally, all bank directors who embezzle their depositors’ money are helpful enough to advertise this), then they deserve to lose their money. Furthermore, they would never put their money in a bank run by somebody who would embezzle their deposits. They never answer the bit about how bad bank runs were on the economy before the FDIC, though. I guess their thinking is that any country dumb enough to have creditors dumb enough to put their money in banks run by embezzlers deserves to have its economy ruined by bank runs, though, presumably, these rugged individualists are somehow immune to the effects of a panic or depression. They seem like they cannot fathom how their own awesomeness could ever fail to protect them from something bigger than they are. It’s weird. Most 13 year olds think they’re invincible deep down. I guess libertarians are just 13 year olds who never made it to 14 emotionally or mentally.

  29. 29.

    aimai

    @frosty: Albion’s Seed is practically my favorite book of all time. If you liked that you might like another book–totally different but also illuminating about American Culture. “Writing With Scissors” The stupid Oxford University Press site I’m linking to makes it sound stupid, but if you go to amazon you will find some great reviews. It explores the ways North and South (women mostly) and black and white used scrapbooks to explore and understand the Civil War and Reconstruction. Everyone read newspapers, books, and poems and clipped what they could and assembled them into scrapbook accounts of the war. The writer does an amazing job of showing you how the same information from the same newspapers circulated differently in northern and southern circles, and how freed black people used newspaper clippings and scrapbooks as a way of combatting white narratives about reconstruction and black lives.

  30. 30.

    Miss Bianca

    @efgoldman: in rural CO parts we have the ambulance fund – you can pay a (fairly modest) annual fee to the volunteer EMT/ambulance brigade as a sort of insurance against needing their services. When you consider what the cost of an uninsured ambulance trip is, it’s a very sound investment – and keeps the services going.

  31. 31.

    Schlemazel Khan

    @Mnemosyne:
    When we lived in Florida I was amazed at the number of people who would gladly spend $500 for a hand gun, $800 for a killer dog (who occasionally bite an innocent) and $5000-10000 for an alarm system but when the last Dem Gov proposed a tax that would have cost the average taxpayer $3.50 a year to keep killers and rapists in jail for their entire sentence instead of serving only 1 month per year sentenced, he was damn near run out of office. Only the incompetence of his opponents (one HEB! Bush) and a bunch of dead tourists saved him.

  33. 33.

    Mike in NC

    @frosty: When we moved here 8 years ago we were advised that the Civil War was still ongoing, and this was coming from conservative Midwestern Republicans.

  35. 35.

    Mnemosyne

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I’m okay with practical math (like figuring out percentages), but anything less concrete loses me. I would have done a lot better in chemistry if it hadn’t required so many equations before we could do the lab work.

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):

    Funny story: it turns out that a great-great-uncle of mine (grandfather’s uncle) was one of those. He started a small immigrants’ bank in Chicago and then fled back to Italy with the proceeds. Took my grandfather’s family years to pay back the depositors, which they kinda had to do if they didn’t want their house burned down.

  37. 37.

    Central Planning

    I’m on the west coast for a few days. Looks like I’ll get to hang with the night shift here

  39. 39.

    Mnemosyne

    First World complaint of the night: apparently getting a new iPhone means I also have to update all of the software on my laptop so I can download my music. Sigh.

    I’m naming her Eliza, because she’s pink, and because by a strange coincidence, the iPhone 4S I’ve had for the last 4 years was named Alexander.

  40. 40.

    Patricia Kayden

    Lawrence O’Donnell got Pastor Darryl Scott (Trump supporter) real good just now. Lol! Got him to admit that Trump was greedy.

  43. 43.

    Adam L Silverman

    @aimai: I’ve seen that, its excellent. Haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but I’ve only heard good things.

  44. 44.

    burnspbesq

    @efgoldman:

    Haven’t heard it all yet, but I think appellants’ lawyers are going are doing a good job of highlighting the ways that the District Court got the law wrong. On the other hand, I was astounded that plaintiffs lost in the District Court.

  50. 50.

    frosty

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.):

    All this talk about “public goods” is just a sneaky-ass way for communists to sneak all kinds of subversive ideas into our pristine heads about evils like clean water and rural electrification. Go back to Roosha, where you’ll be happy with the other commies.

    Next they’ll be poisoning our precious bodily fluids. Purity of Essence!

  52. 52.

    frosty

    @Miss Bianca:

    in rural CO parts we have the ambulance fund

    In South PA, too, although it’s called a membership. It sets a limit on the fee they charge for transportation. Basically insurance, although not called that.

  53. 53.

    redshirt

    I can’t wait for the day religion doesn’t matter for a Presidential candidate.

    We’re nowhere close, but we are getting closer.

  55. 55.

    aimai

    That was such a weird article–I had to read it twice to figure out what had happened. The “good samaritan” cut his hand while breaking the glass. And he received some kind of treatment by the ambulance guys. What were they supposed to do? He could have severely injured himself helping out and then, presumably, he’d have been glad they turned up. Being a good samaritan doesn’t mean he couldn’t have also needed the emt response.

  57. 57.

    aimai

    @Mnemosyne: You will love this book–she discusses the long history of men scrapbooking. Almost all public figures kept scrapbooks of their own appearances and speeches, if they appeared in newspapers, as well as keeping scrapbooks as “commonplace books” where they might keep ephemera and circulated poetry or quotes.

  58. 58.

    Origuy

    Elk Grove and the Cosumnes River area are south of Sacramento. Twenty years ago the area was nearly all farms and orchards. Today, it’s covered with housing. I suspect the public services haven’t kept up with the population.

  59. 59.

    mayim

    @Miss Bianca:

    American Nations by Colin Woodard. Well worth a read about regional cultural differences in the U.S. An excellent companion to the sociology/historical demography in Albion’s Seed, mentioned in someone else’s comment.

  60. 60.

    Adam L Silverman

    @mayim: I’ve used it in my professional work for the Army to provide explanations on cultural differences. It is sometimes easier to start with the US context to set the conceptual hook.

  61. 61.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne:
    I’ve taught people with 4th grade educations who could basically only add and subtract to use trig. I’ve also tutored statistics in college to people who got good grades in mathematics but totally had no understanding of stats. The trick to learning mathematics or statistics is to find out how you look at the process and go from that point of view. IOW individualized education because generalized doesn’t explain things the way you look at them. It explains things from the perspective of rigidity of rules. If your brain doesn’t see things that way, you will have a hard time with rigid structured education. It doesn’t mean you are incapable at all. You just have a different perspective. That man with a 4th grade education was a black man, who had to drop out of the 4th grade in Louisiana in the early 50s to help support his mother. He didn’t think he could learn because he’d been told that a lot and no one tried. It was easy to teach him and I had to start almost from scratch, because he’d been deprived of an education. He learned, he became a much more valuable employee, and got raises that helped him support his family.

  62. 62.

    redshirt

    @Ruckus:

    I’ve taught people with 4th grade educations who could basically only add and subtract to use trig. I’ve also tutored statistics in college to people who got good grades in mathematics but totally had no understanding of stats. The trick to learning mathematics or statistics is to find out how you look at the process and go from that point of view. IOW individualized education because generalized doesn’t explain things the way you look at them. It explains things from the perspective of rigidity of rules. If your brain doesn’t see things that way, you will have a hard time with rigid structured education. It doesn’t mean you are incapable at all. You just have a different perspective. That man with a 4th grade education was a black man, who had to drop out of the 4th grade in Louisiana in the early 50s to help support his mother. He didn’t think he could learn because he’d been told that a lot and no one tried. It was easy to teach him and I had to start almost from scratch, because he’d been deprived of an education. He learned, he became a much more valuable employee, and got raises that helped him support his family.

    4th grade education is ideal.

  68. 68.

    PurpleGirl

    @Jeffro: I remember the news stories after the Clintons first moved into the White House; especially the ones which were comparing The Clintons with the Reagans. Especially that the Clintons had joined a Methodist congregation in D.C. and they had pictures of the Clintons leaving for church on Sunday mornings and that the Reagans never seemed to make it to church on a Sunday (or on any day that ended on “y”).

  69. 69.

    Miss Bianca

    @mayim: American Nations is one of my favorite histories, and has doubtless influenced my thoughts profoundly on our regional differences. Haven’t read Albion’s Seed yet, it’s on the list.

  70. 70.

    Procopius

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Formerly Mumphrey, et al.): Back when FDIC was first being considered, Republicans and conservatives were totally opposed to it, because it would destroy the banking system. It would relieve people of the need to carefully choose a sound bank to keep their money in, so they naturally would keep their money in unsound banks which would go broke in short order and bankrupt the insurance system. Seriously. They really made this argument. This was after something like 50% of the banks in the U.S. closed their doors. Some things never change.

  71. 71.

    Procopius

    It would have helped if the first two sentences did not contradict each other. The first sentence says he got a bill. The second sentence says they sent him a fee. When you send someone a fee, you send them money. Not a bill. After reading the whole thing three or four times I decided that this guy who was at the scene and already helping the people in the crash was billed by the ambulance crew because they checked him for shock or something. He was not given a fee. He was given a bill.

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